Photo Challenge Tuesday – Flower

Just a quick post to share this lovely challenge that I came across whilst browsing blogs both new and old. Isn’t it great to discover some thing new? I have followed Nanacathy for some time and have joined her in a previous photo challenge called Friday Fences, it was so obscure I just couldn’t resist, but that was way back in 2013.

My recent browsing led me to Wild Daffodil where the new photo challenge is housed, well actually it is only new to me, and now you of course, as it ran all of last year too. Basically you are provided with a theme and on the first tuesday of every month you post your contribution then leave a link to your post in the comments on Wild Daffodil’s blog post.

The blossom image above is not a new image but one that I have shared on a previous post here it’s right at the end of the post, not totally realted to the woolly content apart from being pink. It was just that it is my favouite tree in our garden, it only blossoms for about 3 weeks in a year and creates a whole lot of sweeping up once the blossoms fall but it is incredably beautiful for those 3 short weeks.

The photo above is more weeds than flowers and mostly dead at that, but rather beatiful in my eyes nevertheless. Anyway a friend once said to me that a weed is merely an uncultivated flower so on that note it does qualify, I will leave you to make up your own mind.

My last entry is a woolly one, I couldn’t resist as creating with yarn is what I love to do most, a very simple Sunflower.

So don’t think about just join the photo party visit Wild Daffodil  now!

Baby Blanket Centre Squares

Baby Blanket Centre Squares

Pretty in Pink Baby Blanket

and Little Boy Blues Baby Blanket

I have been asked many times for the pattern for the squares in the centre of these baby blankets and have been very pleased to share via email upon request. I have had the pattern written up for ages so I thought why not create a post to share the joy that I had in making them.

I hope the pattern is clear but if you have any questions just let me know

Centre Square Pattern

1. Chain 6 slip stitch into the first stitch to make a ring.
2. Chain 1 (counts as first dc) c 15 into the ring, slip stitch into the first chain made, 16 sts.
3. 4 chain, 3trtog into same st to make the first petal cluster, 3ch, miss next dc,

*tr 4 tog, 3 ch, miss next dc**  repeat from * to ** 6 more times, 8 petal clusters formed.

4. Slip stitch into the next 3 ch space, 1ch, 1 dc in same space, * 2ch, (3htr, 3ch, 3htr0 into next 3 ch space, 2 ch, 1 dc in next 3ch space, rep from * 3 times more, omitting dc at the end of the last repeat, slip stitch into first dc.

The final round is trebles and I think you will be able to follow that from the images. Any questions please let me know and I will be happy to help if I can.

Crochet Work Basket

Crochet Work Basket.

I love it, I get so much pleasure from putting away my latest project in it’s special work basket.

It was hard work on my wrists using yarn this thick, well cotton actually, but it was worth it.

It started with a simple circle to create the base, this image doesn’t actually show quite how thick the cotton is but the hook is a size 11 so that may give you an idea!

With perseverance and regular breaks for my wrist it grew taller, I love the pattern created by simple switches from single crochet to half treble crochet and working into back loops only. So effective.

When I felt it was tall enough it was time to break for the handles by replacing the stitches with a chain ready to stitch over on the following round.

I have wanted to make myself a work basket for ages and finally got around to it!

You can make your own work basket using this link to the pattern.

Happy hooking my friends.

 

 

Baby Blanket for a Little Man

 

Baby Blanket for  a little boy.

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My lovely daughter called and asked if I could make a blanket for the Christening of her friends baby, “of course” said I “when is it”, “next week” says Miss A.

I said I would love to make something. But within a week? Although I would say that I am not one to be easily deterred from a woolly challenge it would be unlikely to be ready in time for the christening date. We agreed that that would be ok and I have to confess that I was delighted to be given a reason to start this pattern, I have been eyeing it up for quite a while and wasted no time in getting started.

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I wanted it to be bright and cheery so went for a mix of blues and turquoise with white to give the patches a lift, the soft teddy bearish brown added an nice earthy tone to pull it all together.

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I just love laying the squares out as you go to mark your progress deriving great pleasure from seeing them all laid out once complete and ready for joining.

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Just to give you a closer view of the different blocks used to create this baby blanket, the heart is made separately then stitched into place in the centre of this simple crochet square.

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The Catherine Wheel pattern is employed for the one of the rectangle squares. I love the motion you feel with this one.

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A simple extention to the heart square base using treble crochet stitches.

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The simple Shell pattern, the only single colour block used.

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The teddy bear brown surrounds and joins each block together and is also used to frame the simple trebble crochet border before the lacy edging is applied.

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And then, it’s finished. Ready to wrap itself around a special little man!

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I do so love making blankets and this was such a pleasure I have no hessitation in recommending the pattern from a book I have used many times, Baby Crochet by Lois Daykin.

ps. I am going to ask Mama if I can share the photo of the little chap laid on his new blanket, what this space!

Nature’s Joy and Blissful Childhood

My daughter is a teacher on a sabbatical to research education in Finland to find out more about how the nordic education system is delivered. She is blogging as she goes on her travels and I am fancinated by the thinking that is behind not only their education but the thinking generally about life and children so I thought I would share her latest post. I am so very grateful to all the lovely people she is meeting who are opening up their homes to her and showing her the beautiful countryside. Thank you.

In Finland, anyone and everyone has the right to enjoy the countryside, no matter who owns the land, because of the legal concept, ‘everyman’s right’. Anyone may pick and enjoy the numerous varieties of mushrooms and berries that grow there; anyone may walk, ski, cycle, fish, swim and camp in the countryside so long as they […]

via Everyman’s (and woman’s) rights — Rethinking the classroom

Country Garden Crochet Bicycle

In line with the current trend for cycling what better way to celebrate than to our craft than upcycling a bicycle.

I had so much fun creating this quintessential english country rose garden wrapped around one of the bicycles that were kindly donated by our local recycling centre in Burniston.

A bed of 20 roses in shades of red, pink, peach and lemon made the cover for the seat. It wouldn’t be a rose garden without a cute little bumble bee, this little honey maker was donated by Mrs G, a very talented knitting friend.

Continuing the rose theme with 2 giant blooms displayed on the rear wheel.

With his cute pink button cheeks a snail this sweet just has to be forgiven for having a little nibble on the vegetation.

Nestling on the front wheel is a silky silver spiders web, home to two (not so scary) spiders, but wait a minute there’s only one!

There he is, he’s obviously just been for a spin, pardon the pun.

He has just been exploring the rose vine that’s creeping around the cross-bar.

The Country Rose Garden bicycle featured in the 2015 yarn bombing at the surgery along with another themed on the seaside. They certainly gained a lot of interest.

It took me approximately two weeks of crocheting to cover each bike and make the adornments

Is it a Tea Cosy or is it a Hat?

A friend, actually it is a friends sister, works with children and her trademark is hats, she tells me she has a whole range of them from funky to funny. It all started a few Christmases ago when she wore a santa hat for work, it caused such amusement that she has been collecting hats ever since.

It started with this colourful stripy Ripple Tea Cosy.

Anyway this lovely (slightly crazy lady) saw this Tea Cosy and asked me if I could make her a hat in the same style. Well it does look rather like a hat doesn’t it?

Easy peasy.

That’s what I thought, that is until I sat down to make it! The Tea Cosy is made in two halves but I thought the hat would look better with just one join, sounds simple enough, just add the number of stitches and off you go. But when I tried to put the cosy on as a hat it was a little on the tight side so  the hat would need to be bigger.

That’s when it took a bit more thinking about, to get the right size and the pattern to join in a continual zig zag. I do find it quite taxing to work these things out, it all makes sense on paper but then in practice………not always so.

I have been trying to find some software for crochet pattern writing but sadly have yet to find anything that works well. If anyone knows of anything I would love to hear from you.

In the meantime I will be delivering the hat this weekend, I hope she likes it.

 

Baby Jacket and Teddy Booties

These Teddy Booties are a favourite I have made before several times. Much as I have enjoyed doing the yarn bombing it has been so nice to have the time to make something just because I felt like it, no themes. I do so love these boots.

And this little wrap around style jacket is great for baby boys or girls. You can just imagine a chubby little babe cosily clad in this cute jacket and bootee set and ready for cuddles.

They are both from a book that I love Baby Crochet by Lois Daykin. It is full of toys, hats and bibs to make, even a long colourful snake. Take a peek and see what you think.

Charity Yarn Bombing 2015 – Part 2

Here is the second part of the yarn bombing.

In addition to the five themes we had these gorgeous blankets that were donated by 2 lovely Mama’s. This one is called The Lily Pond and was very generously sent from Mama H, my lovely mother in law. There is so much work in creating a piece like this I don’t know how she could part with it, we offer our heartfelt thanks.

Colourful crochet hexagons make up the second blanket, these were made by my lovely Mum. The hexagons were made from a random batch of yarn and there was an odd number of each colour, this made it quite a task to get the layout right. We had it laid out on the floor so many times before we found a pattern where the colours balanced. I actually joined them all together and edged it and I think it worked out ok in the end.

This rose vine was very sought after on the day which was a huge compliment to the creater who fashioned this pretty floral garland out of donated oddments. Isn’t it amazing what can be made from scraps of yarn when you pass them on to a talented knitter?

Jungle Capers

Cheeky monkeys swinging amongst the vines were a feature in the jungle, these twin primates each sported a little flower, one blue and one pink. Don’t know how they managed to keep them in with all that swinging around!

“And how clever am I? Look one hand!” His lovely stripes must give him super gripping power.

Just in case you are wondering why they all have tickets pinned onto them, we used raffle tickets as an identifier. To make their bid our visitors filled in a form using the number and indicating how much they wanted to offer for the item before slipping it into a sealed box.

Slithering below were the snakes in there glorious stripiness.

This little critter was soooooooo long.

A host of other jungle animals gathered together on the steps just taking in all the adoration bestowed upon them

Under the Sea

If you saw last years event you may recognise the sea blanket but this year we focused on under the sea adding some more creatures and a trio of lovely mermaids. There were three honestly but one of our helpers popped into the pub over the road with a collection bucket and a local fisherman made such a good case for why she should allow him to make a generous offer (too good to refuse) and take her straight away, we were left with two. Their sister was already on her way out to sea on the fishermans trawler!

Sorry about the poor photography of the bicycle, I will try and get some better images for another post but for now I hope you can make out the little fishing boat with it’s net cast into the woolly sea on the front wheel.

And the fish and chip supper residing on the seat.

Round by the farm was also a basket of knitted fruits.

And a wheelbarrow just back from the yarn allotment.

Our event was suported by the local library and their knitting group sent us a several baby and toddler knitwear items. Also the sister of one of our dispensers is a prolific knitter, she sent us some gorgeous jackets and cardigans, I think we must have received one a week! Thank you.

We strung up a washing line and pegged out these hand knitted garments.

Last but not least at the bottom of the drive we put a rose tree and ………………

………….. a country garden crochet bicycle.

This shot was taken outside our house before it was transported to the surgery where it stood against the tree to attract passers by.

The event was a lot of work but so worthwhile on many different levels, it brought together patients, staff and friends of the surgery at our crafty Saturday morning gatherings. So many patients who couldn’t attend joined in by dropping into the surgery with yarn for us or with items they had made for one of the themes.  We were also very generously supported by the blogging community so thank you to all of you too.

 

Charity Yarn Bombing 2015 – Part 1

 

For those who followed the project last year you will know we are a small GP surgery on the beautiful coast of North Yorkshire. We have a group of patients and friends of the surgery who love crafting with yarn, following the sucess of the yarn bombing last year we ran the event for 2015 following a similar format for but with some new themes.

Dinosaur Park

I had my doubts about including dinosaurs anticipating it would be limiting in terms of patterns, couldn’t have been more wrong as you can see.

We had quite a few knitted prehistoric deliveries both large and small.

Lots of dino’s for our park in a variety of sizes from the miniature 4-6 inch creations above that patients brought in. To the rather large Stan the Stegosaurus who you may have seen in a previous post where I shared the working progress of creating this colouful prehistoric creaature.

And Monty the Diplodocus.

Teddy Bear’s Picnic

This was one of my favourite pieces, you can see from the size of the raffle ticket just how tiny these little teddies are, they sat on their little picnic blanket contemplating their miniature sandwiches and cakes throughout the weekend. As I am sure you can imagine they were one of the first items to receive a bid.

There was an array of little woolly bears and teddy toys gathered in the picnic corner to share in the knitted and crochet cakes, biscuits and sanwiches including Mrs Baker Bear sat on the chair with piping bag in hand to finish off the last bun.

Rollo the african flower bear settled down amongst the log pile for a snooze after devouring his fill of the picnic.

To sit alongside the picnicing bears we had a stand (ok and yarn bomed step ladder) laden with tea cosies.

These were a very popular contribution to the event, it must be in celebration of the great british brew!

Down on the Farm

One of our group particularly requested we include a Farm theme this year, she had a new book by Sarah Keen that she was dying to try and we were so pleased with results, you can almost hear those little piggies snorting.

Our Parctice Nurse managed to aquire a hay bale for us to display our farmyard creatures, I was thrilled but my lovely hubby was less so as I used his car to collect it! Four weeks on and he has just about got the last of the straw removed from his car boot.

A patient kindly donated this gorgeous african flower horse, I believe it is from the Heidi Bears pattern but sadly the donator remains anonymous so I cannot be sure.

We also had a gathering of owls nestling in the bushes casting their wise eyes over the weekend proceedings.

And in the hedgerow below gathered a collection of bunnies and other creatures.

And birds simply sat on the fence watching the world go by.

 

I don’t want to bore you so will call this post part 1, I will continue working on compiling the other half of the images to post early next week. I am working tomorrow as we are open for our first Flu clinic, it is always a bit crazy at this time of the year when everyone wants to get their vaccination done early to protect against catching a flu bug!